Donuts are the new cupcake. I’ve known this for awhile now. Just pop in to any popular bakery, and you’ll find an array of enticing donutty creations. In fact, donuts are now making starring appearances at birthday parties. I too have been known to stick a candle in a donut, and call it a celebration! But what do you do if you can’t eat gluten, dairy, eggs, nuts, or soy? Bake up a batch yourself, and watch them disappear. I created this recipe for my Food Allergy Recipe Challenge on Martha Stewart’s Whole Living Daily. These Gluten-Free, Vegan Donuts are downright delicious. My son Monte shoved one in his mouth and yelled, “awesome!” while spraying crumbs. They are also easy, scrumptious, and low-fat. What kind of donuts do you like best? Let me know by leaving a comment.

Gluten-Free Vegan Baked Cake Donuts

MAKES 6 DONUTS

If you don’t already have a donut pan, get yourself over to Bed, Bath, & Beyond, or Sur la Table, and buy one! You thought making cupcakes was fun? Wait till you try baked donuts. The perfect sized treat, any time of day. And as an added bonus, these little beauties are low-fat!

3. Measure out flour mix by spooning flour into a dry measuring cup, then leveling it off with a straightedge, or the back of a knife. (Do not scoop the flour directly with the measuring cup or you’ll wind up with too much flour for the recipe). Combine flour mix with xanthan gum, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Whisk well. Set aside.

4. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine vegetable shortening, granulated sugar, egg replacer, and vanilla extract. Beat on medium speed, until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.

5. Sift in the flour mixture in three bathes, alternating with the rice milk, and beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Beat until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary, about 30 seconds.

6. Using a teaspoon, spoon the batter into an ungreased non-stick donut pan, filling each donut cup about 7/8th full. Do not over fill them or they’ll rise too much. Smooth down batter with back of teaspoon to even surface, then wrap pan firmly against counter a few times to really settle batter into pan.

7. Bake 15 minutes in center of oven until lightly golden. Remove from oven and let cool in pan 5 minutes on a cooling rack. Invert onto rack and wrap back of pan lightly to dislodge donuts. Let cool on rack to room temperature. Dip top of donut (the smoother side) into vanilla glaze, then into sprinkles. Set back onto rack to let glaze set. Best when eaten fresh (like all donuts), or they can be frozen and then thawed on counter, on demand.

Vegan Vanilla Glaze

1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar

1 Tablespoon rice milk

1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

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1. Combine all ingredients, mixing until smooth.

Basic Gluten-Free Flour Mix

Makes 6 cups

The key to the very best gluten-free baked goods is Authentic Foods superfine brown rice flour; it is the Cadillac, or cashmere, of brown rice flours and is worth its weight in gold. It is not grainy like other rice flours, and bakes the most fantastic cookies, cakes, pie crusts, and so on. If you can’t find it at your local natural foods market or Whole Foods, order it online. Both Ener-G and Bob’s Red Mill brown rice flours will also work in these recipes, but they won’t turn out quite as well. The brands of potato starch and tapioca flour or starch are not as important; I find them all interchangeable. (Please see Resources, page 177, of The Allergen-Free Baker’s Handbook for more information.)

4 cups superfine brown rice flour

1 1/3 cups potato starch (not potato flour)

2/3 cup tapioca flour (also called tapioca starch)

1. To measure flour, use a large spoon to scoop flour into the measuring cup, then level it off with the back of a knife or straightedge. Do not use the measuring cup itself to scoop your flour when measuring! It will compact the flour and you will wind up with too much for the recipe.

2. Combine all ingredients in a gallon-size zipper-top bag. Shake until well blended. Store in the refrigerator until ready to use.

How do you think champagne vinegar would work in lieu of lemon juice? My son is allergic to citrus, so that’s out. It looks like you’re just using it to sour the milk, not for flavor, so I’m assuming it might be ok. What do you think? If not, any other suggestions? Thanks!

I made these this morning! They were great! My pan held six donuts, and I didn’t want to waste any batter since there was more than the pan would hold at 7/8 full so went ahead and overfilled each opening. After baking, I sliced off the too-high tops and had an additional six flat donuts to decorate for the kids.
Thank you!
I did top one of them with a melted coconut oil/Enjoy life chocolate chips mix so that one was chocolatey – that was yummy too!

Thanks for this recipe! My daughter has multiple food allergies and I can’t wait to make these for my daughter. However, she can have gluten/wheat… if I use regular AP flour for these, do you know how I would adjust the recipe?

[…] I definitely have no patience for baking experiments and when I’ve tried things and failed I get very frustrated. That is why I am so thankful for people like Cybele Pascal who have spent the time and energy and who have the know how to create recipes like this for food allergic families. My son didn’t even know what biscuits were until we made them that night. We have a long list of other recipes we want to try from her cookbook, and also have plans to try some of the recipes from cybelepascal.com (including allergy free donuts!). […]

Just wondering, if we don’t need the recipe to be gluten free, can I just use flour in the same amounts as the gluten free flour and not use the xanthan gum?? (My son just outgrew his wheat allergy!!) Thank you!!

Dear Kesha and Catherine, you can use all purpose flour one for one. Just be sure to measure the same way. Omit the xanthan gum. And keep an eye on the donuts as they may bake slightly more quickly. Enjoy!

I’m totally lost. I thought I finally figured out what vegans eat, but you list granulated sugar. I thought vegans did not eat sugar. Do they eat refined sugar? Evaporated cane sugar? I thought they only used molasses and agave, etc. Those doughnuts look awesome! I was just asked to contribute a healthy doughnut recipe. Thanks for the inspiration!

Carla, vegans eat sugar if it hasn’t been bleached using bone char. There are several brands of vegan granulated sugar. Wholesome Sweeteners and Florida Crystals. Can you share your donut recipe? I’d love to see how you adapted this one.

I tried these today and they are wonderful, even though they completely fell apart on me! I followed the recipe very carefully and they still crumbled. Is anyone else having this issue? Should I bake them longer? Any suggestions for attempt 2 would be appreciated!!

I used your mix of flours, I’m not 100% sure on the brands though. I’m in Canada and I don’t always have access to the same brands you use. I didn’t substitute any of the ingredients either. It was very strange… But still tasty crumbles!! I guess I’ll just have to try again!
Thanks

I made them this morning as a Valentine’s Day surprise for my son and had the same thing happen, they totally disintegrated when I tried to take them out. I think my problem was two fold though, one I was using a heart shaped donut pan, which was smaller and I over filled them and the other was I used regular rice flour (Bob’s) as it is all I had.

I am using my crumbs to make him donut pops though if my son ever stops eating the crumbs!!

In the Whole Living Daily comments on the recipe someone suggests using a mini bundt cake pan. I think I will try this next.

Here’s an egg replacer powder recipe for those that cannot have tapioca (or corn if you use corn-free ingredients). I use this all the time in Cybele’s recipes and it works great! Use the amount of powder called for in the recipe instead of the store bought egg replacer.

I used regular flour and no xanthan gum and they rose great and taste great too- however they stuck to the nonstick donut pan (Wilton brand) so the smooth side stayed intact but the backs completely fell apart. I’m wondering if I should oil and flour the pan or also try loosening them out sooner after removing from the oven? I’ll post back if I figure out the trick. These will be a great treat to add to our recipe collection.

I was hacked in September, and was thankfully able to restore much of my site, but am still dealing with some awful fallout. I have emailed my programmer and am hoping for a solution asap. Please check back.

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Hi, I'm Cybele, Allergy-Friendly Cook, cookbook author, mom, food allergic person, CEO of Cybele's Free-to-Eat, baker of gluten-free, allergy-friendly cookies that are Free From the Top 8 Allergens, working to make the world a safer and more delicious place for eaters everywhere, one recipe at a time.